I will be breaking this post on the twelve zodiac signs into two sections in order to make it easier to digest. What you will learn in these sections, building on the rest of the Saadia Tree and Cellular Consciousness, are ideas which should be exciting for the esoteric community. It is challenging material to get your head around and ultimately up to that community what they do with it but the ideas are freely given.There are Twelve basic genetic mechanisms and these relate to the Twelve Zodiac signs and the Twelve diagonal paths on the Tree of Life*. We'll look at the first six in this section, Aries-Virgo which cover DNA replication. As you know you are made of biological cells, each cell contains a nucleus which conceals the chromosomes - genetic dictionaries listing all the words or proteins necessary to make you. These six genetic rhythms relate to the way in which these chromosomes replicate in order for the cell to divide into two daughter cells and involve contortions of the double helix - it must unzip, be read and copied, uncoil, reanneal, wrap and stack - this dance of the DNA secures the continuance of all life on Earth.

DNA replication or Aries to Virgo

Aries - The Replication ForkThe replication fork is a structure that forms within the nucleus during DNA replication when the two strands break apart so they can be read and ultimately copied. The resulting structure has two branching prongs, each one made up of a single strand of DNA. These prongs are the horns of the Ram. As the replication fork is the beginning of the cell cycle so our Aries is the beginning of our Zodiac.

Taurus - DNA PolymerasesEach one of these separate strands is now read by an enzyme called DNA polymerase which runs down the strand and copies it. Every letter that makes up the code AGTC has its mirror opposite and what the polymerase does is provide this opposite so that each separate strand can ultimately become DNA again.

Gemini & Cancer - DNA TopoisomerasesDuring the copying of the DNA there are problems with the twisting of the threads and these must be solved by DNA topoisomerases - enzymes which regulate the overwinding or underwinding of DNA. DNA topoisomerase I cuts into the strand allowing it to break into two separate strands very reminescent of the symbol for Gemini and DNA topoisomerase II allows the strands to reanneal and supecoil again - this supercoiling being shown by Cancer, the two strands rotating around each other again.

Leo - Histone Bodies and NucleosomesOur DNA is now ready to be bound into the structures called chromosomes. First this thread is wrapped around histone bodies - you can think of these as something like spindles. As a spindle is filled with thread it is stacked against another spindle until they all stack up neatly into chromatin. Since each human cell has about six feet of DNA inside the nucleus this is truly economic packing and stacking. The genetic diagram below shows the super-coiled DNA of Cancer at the far left, the wrapping of these onto our histone spindles of Leo in the central section and finally the solenoids of Virgo at the far right.

Virgo - SolenoidsThe wrapped DNA packaged on to the histone bodies is then stacked up into a structure called a solenoid. These solenoids form our chromosomes the repository of our life and our cellular fertility. A fitting association for Virgo. In the diagram below you can see the solenoid on the far left and if you rotate the symbol for Virgo ninety degrees you will hopefully see the obvious connection between the two.

From Aries to Virgo then we chart the origins of the replication process in the uncoiling of the virile horns of Aries, the fertile work ox of Taurus that replicates each one of the horns by providing it with its mirror opposite, in Gemini, the uncoiling of the loops so they stand opposite one another - duality unbound - following by the supercoiling of Cancer - duality rebound. This double helical twine is then bound on to its spindle in Leo, and the spindles are stacked in Virgo finally culminating in the structure we call the chromosome. Are these associations between the astrological glyphs and genetic diagrams mere coincidence? The Sefer Yetzirah is known as the Book of Formation and was used, according to legend, to create life - the twenty two letters like astral chromosomes that we mix and match through the 231 Gates in order to heal limbs or manufacture golems**. Throughout the knowledge of the Western Mysteries we see reference to our spiral nature - be it through the caduceus or through the Tree of Life - and indeed the discoveries of our biochemists stand on the shoulders of our ancestors, the alchemists and the qabalists. That the wisdom of the ancients, transmitted from antiquity through our mystery schools would correlate so well with the findings of genetics seems to be clear - indeed if we believe in the principle of as above so below why would it not be?

If the chromosomes are The Rivers of Time, their course unbroken since the dawn of life and the first cell, their internal clocks, their cell cycles mapped by the movement of the stars perhaps a better name would be the chronosomes.

*Note the way the diagonal paths trace a DNA like shape on the ToL.**More on this later.